Statistical estimation often requires the optimization of an objective function to determine a possible value for a parameter to be estimated. For some objective functions, traditional methods such as the Newton-Raphson method may be used to perform such an optimization and estimation. However, for more complex problems, such methods are not able to perform the requested determinations. These more complex problems often become very difficult to solve, requiring sizeable amounts of time and computing resources. Simplification of these problems to reduce the time and resource requirements may often result in less than desirable quality of estimations.